Passover Foods

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Ashkenazi Jews to join Sephardic

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54 April 14 • 2016

hy will this Passover seder be
different than all other seders
Rabbi Robert Gamer has led?
At this seder, Gamer and his wife,
Wendy, plan to serve a side dish made
with rice or beans, foods previously pro-
hibited for Conservative Ashkenazi Jews.
That’s because in November, the
Committee on Law and Standards of
the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly
issued two responsa about whether the
Ashkenazi custom of not eating legumes
on Passover could be eliminated. Both
responsa stated there is no reason in
Halachah (Jewish law) why rice, corn,
legumes and seeds, collectively known as
kitniyot, should not be eaten on Passover.
All Jews are forbidden to eat chametz,
defined as wheat, barley, oats, rye or spelt
that hasn’t been baked into matzah. For
many centuries, Ashkenazi Jews, whose
ancestors came from central and Eastern
Europe, also avoided foods made from
kitniyot.
“Kitniyot is a catch-all phrase for things
that are not chametz but which the rabbis
decided to prohibit,” said Gamer, rabbi at
Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park.
Their reasoning was that rice and beans
were often grown and stored near wheat
and other prohibited grains, allowing for
the possibility that some forbidden grains
might get mixed with the legumes and
seeds. They were also concerned foods
made from kitniyot might look like they
were made from the prohibited chametz
and lead others to think it was acceptable
to eat chametz.
Sephardic Jews, whose ancestors are
from Spain and the Middle East, have
never observed a prohibition against kit-
niyot; and many products containing rice,
corn and legumes are labeled “kosher for
Passover” in Israel.
In his responsum, Rabbi David
Golinkin of the Schechter Institute of
Jewish Studies in Jerusalem says forbid-
ding kitniyot is “in direct contradiction
to an explicit decision in the Babylonian
Talmud and also in contradiction to the
opinion of all the sages of the Mishnah
and Talmud except one.”
His paper quotes 13th-century rabbis

who described the prohibition against
kitniyot as “a mistaken custom” and “a
foolish custom.” Still, the custom became
more and more entrenched over time.
“In the last few years, the Conservative
movement realized it was not good law,
and the law committee decided to revisit
it,” Gamer said.
Rabbi Steven Rubenstein of
Congregation Beth Ahm in West
Bloomfield sees the ruling as “an oppor-
tunity for greater understanding of the
holiday of Passover and the laws and tra-
ditions surrounding it.”
He noted that permitting kitniyot still
involves a lot of caveats. Canned beans
still need kosher-for-Passover certifica-
tion, he said, and it would be unwise to
purchase rice or beans in bulk for the very
reason some 13th-century rabbis prohib-
ited them: It’s too easy for chametz to get
mixed in.
He suggested those who want to eat
kitniyot should buy rice and beans in bags
before Passover and check them carefully
for any stray prohibited grains in the bag.
Both rabbis stress that no one is obli-
gated to eat kitniyot.
Rubenstein said some of his congre-
gants felt there was no reason to change
the way they have observed the holiday
their whole lives. Some even worried that
adding kitniyot would make the holiday
feel less special.
For Rabbi Sasson Natan of Keter Torah
Synagogue in West Bloomfield, it’s a moot
issue. As a Sephardic Jew, he’s been eating
kitniyot his entire life and will serve rice
at both of his seders this year. But when
he and his wife prepare rice or beans at
Passover, they check it three times to make
sure no chametz has mixed in.
Rabbi Yechiel Morris of the Orthodox
Young Israel of Southfield won’t be chang-
ing his Passover habits either; he will con-
tinue to observe the minhag (custom, as
opposed to law) of avoiding kitniyot.
“Minhagim usually begin with a good
reason,” he said. “Jews who began the
practice of not eating kitniyot had valid
concerns. It then became part of the
Pesach experience. We connect to those
earlier generations by maintaining the
custom. When opting for rice or tradition,
I am willing to forgo the rice.”

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